What Happens If You Don't Drink Any Water?

Hello Health Champions. Today we're going to  talk about what would happen if you didn't  

drink any water and we'll cover the real reason  water is so important and how much you really  

need to drink you might be surprised this here  is a water molecule and it is arguably the most  

important molecule that we know of this is the  oxygen and these are the hydrogens so we got H2O  

the planet is about 70 percent covered in water  the human adult body consists of about 60 percent  

water this little molecule right here the soft  tissues in the body are about 70 to 80 percent  

water and even things that seem dry like bone are  about 30 percent water and the reason we're even  

alive lies in the word water soluble so when  we look at this molecule there is an angle the  

high hydrogens are pushed apart at an angle  of a hundred and four point five degrees and  

because of that water is the universal solvent if  these two hydrogen molecules would have been in a  

straight line if this angle was 180 degrees  Life as we know it could not exist all life  

depends on the fact that water can dissolve more  than anything else on the planet and the reason  

life depends on water is that everything that we  want to transport around dissolves in that water  

inside our cells our entire metabolism virtually  All chemical reactions in your body takes place in  

an aqueous solution in the water-soluble base and  these chemical reactions when they're done they  

produce waste that also needs to be transported  and eliminated through this water-soluble system  

and even though water supports everything that  happens in the body the functions in my opinion  

Falls basically in three categories and the  first one is temperature regulation the body  

is about 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit or 37 degrees  Celsius and we'd like to keep it that way and  

the blood which is mostly water also distributes  heat the core is the warmest portion so as the  

blood flows it distributes that heat as well and  if it wants to conserve heat then it transports  

less it circulates less blood to the periphery  and it preserves the heat at the core if there  

is too much heat and the body is trying to get  rid of it then it will circulate that heat to  

the surface so it can radiate off to the external  environment but then water also serves one more  

function because it can evaporate when we sweat  then it costs energy to evaporate that water so  

if we have moisture on the skin and it turns  into gas that costs energy so we can cool off  

the body with that mechanism function number  two is basically everything else and you can  

read various different lists where they talk about  the functions of water how important it is such as  

lubricating joints nourishing the central nervous  system which is your brain and spinal cord how it  

moistens tissues such as mucous membranes how it  supports your GI tract and then I had to laugh  

about this one that it prevents dehydration that's  really profound that if dehydration means you  

don't have enough water then water can solve the  problem of not having enough water I mean that's  

really profound wow but the lists go on and on and  on and the reason I'm making a little bit of fun  

out of this is that it makes really no sense to  list certain functions as depending on water when  

everything in the body depends on water every  single chemical reaction that happens in your  

cells and in your blood and the distribution  and so forth they all depend on water so this  

list really is millions of items long the third  function is waste elimination and this one also  

fits within that category of everything else but  I wanted to mention this separately because it  

is just that important and we're going to come  back and cover this separately now the reason  

that you need to add water all the time is that  we keep losing it and here's how we lose it we  

lose two to three liters per day at rest so we're  going to talk about when this guy goes up or down  

also in the urine you lose about one and a half  liter per day in sweat you lose another half a  

liter through breathing you lose about half a  liter and then through your bowel movements you  

also lose about 0.2 liters now what we want to  keep in mind that there's a huge variation here  

I put plus minus 500 percent so if you drink  two gallons then the urine is going to go up  

dramatically if you're working outside in the heat  the sweating is going to go up dramatically if you  

exercise breathing loss to breathing is going  to go up dramatically and if you have diarrhea  

or if you eat foods with lots of fiber that whole  lots of water then this number will go up as well  

so we need to understand that these numbers have  an enormous amount of variety to them and just  

like everything else the body is really good  at regulating the amount of fluid in the body  

and it's one of the most important things that it  does so when we have a circumstance of not enough  

water then there's a place in the brain called the  hypothalamus that senses that the concentration of  

particles have changed so if the concentration  of particles go up that means we need to dilute  

it with more water we need more water so the brain  the hypothalamus says we need to release more ADH  

anti-diuretic hormone and it does exactly what it  says a diuretic is something that pushes water out  

so antidiuretic is something that holds water  in and it's the kidneys that does this so the  

kidneys normally filter out about 200 liters of  water but then it reabsorbs about 99 and a half  

percent of that so that we only eliminate donate  about one and a half liters but if the ADH goes up  

when the hypothalamus says we need to hold on to  this water then the percentage goes even higher  

than 99 and a half percent and at the same time  this also signals thirst because the hypothalamus  

says hey we better preserve what we have but let's  try to find ways to increase the intake also if we  

on the other hand have too much water now there's  a couple of other mechanisms the first one is  

called pressure diuresis so when we have too much  water the blood volume is larger it's going to  

increase the blood pressure and it's going to push  more fluid out through the kidneys all by itself  

just mechanical pressure and then at the same  time the hypothalamus release is less antidiuretic  

hormones so now the kidney retention goes down  it's not going to reabsorb as much because we have  

too much but here's basically what happens these  are the consequences of not having enough water so  

if we let look at a scale from totally hydrated  zero percent water loss then as we go down we  

have two percent water loss the first thing that's  going to happen is thirst at this point we might  

start getting a little tired we have a little bit  less athletic performance but no huge consequence  

except that the hypothalamus is so sensitive  it's already picking up that there's a problem  

and tries to get more water in by signaling thirst  but if we don't get to drink and this water loss  

continues now we start seeing things like a  loss of energy we're going to have our mood  

is going to suffer we're going to see a reduction  in skin elasticity and the skin is going to start  

looking more dry and sunken we're going to have  a loss of cognition we're going to be less able  

to focus and concentrate and think clearly and  all of these are going to continually get worse  

as the water loss increases because they're going  to be very significant by the time we have about a  

six percent water loss and then by the time we've  lost about eight percent of the water in the body  

now we're going to start feeling lightheaded and  have fainting spells we're going to be very close  

to fainting and the big reason for that is that we  just don't have enough water in the blood anymore  

to fill out the cardiovascular system so it's very  difficult for the heart to pump the blood Up From  

The Heart To The Head And if this continues to  about 10 percent we're going to start seeing  

organ failure and by the time we're at 15 percent  water loss than most people are going to be dead  

by that time but why do we die if we stop drinking  water what's the mechanism for that why is it that  

we only have a few days a few to several days  to live without water and there's a couple of  

scenarios so with acute dehydration this could be  a marathon runner someone who runs a marathon in  

Death Valley and doesn't replenish it could be  someone who has lost in the desert someone who  

is very hot and they're losing water very quickly  now most of these chemical functions most of these  

organs are going to start failing simply because  there's not enough water to support these chemical  

reactions there's not enough fluid there's not  enough circulation to carry this out everything  

starts becoming too congested and too stagnant  but there's another mechanism that I think is  

much more interesting for the average person  who's not lost in the desert or trying to run  

a marathon in excessive heat and that is what's  the mechanism for the slow loss what is it that's  

harming us and basically remember that that all of  the chemical reactions in the body they use some  

kind of substrate like carbohydrate or protein  or fat and then we turn that into energy we turn  

it into building blocks but all these chemical  reactions they produce waste products there's  

some residue left over from those and the body has  to get rid of that somehow and the kidney is the  

organ that needs to filter that out and then to  reabsorb the water so when it reabsorbs the clean  

water then it's basically concentrating the waste  products the particles into the urine and the less  

water we have the less fresh water we have added  to the body the harder the kidneys have to try to  

concentrate the more energy it has to expend in  concentrating the urine but not only that there's  

a physiological limit to how much the kidney can  concentrate that and here's how this concentration  

works in the body it's called plasma osmolarity  and it's basically a measurement of how many  

particles are dissolved per volume of liquid so if  we have a certain number of particles at Baseline  

this would be the average concentration in the  body and the typical concentration for humans  

and probably most mammals at least is about 300  millimoles per liter so just think of that as 300  

particles per a certain volume but then in the  kidneys they have a filtering system so they're  

trying to push these particles into tubules into  smaller compartments so these particles are forced  

they're pressed using energy through a pumping  system and we're trying to get as many of these  

particles into the tubules for excretion and this  represents that concentrated urine but there's a  

limit to how much the body can concentrate it  and the physiological limit for humans is about  

1200 particles so the capacity for human kidneys  to concentrate is about four-fold the average is  

about 300 particles the limit we can push it into  is 1200 particles and beyond that limit it becomes  

impossible for the kidneys to purify the blood any  further without adding more fresh water so as the  

kidneys fail to push more in we're eliminating the  most concentrated urine we can but we still can't  

keep up there is more waste being produced and the  body gets more and more toxic more waste products  

are building up and for humans that number is 1200  because that works for us based on our environment  

but what about some other animals well camels for  example it's a very large animal but it lives in  

very dry conditions so the camel has the ability  to concentrate that you're in twice as much it  

can concentrate it not fourfold but Eightfold  and that allows it to live on much less water  

dolphins that live in the ocean can concentrate  up to about 1800 because there's tons and tons  

of water in the ocean obviously but the sea  water itself starts off at an osmolarity of  

about a thousand particles so humans can't use  seawater because it's so close to our limit but  

an animal that has a much higher margin above that  of seawater they can actually use and get water  

out of seawater another interesting example  is beavers who can only do 520 because they  

have access to water all the time but it's  fresh water so they have plenty of resources  

to constantly flush that out and they don't need  the ability to concentrate it very much and then  

we have the world champion at this which is the  Australian hopping Mouse it's a small animal and  

it lives in the desert and it has the capacity to  concentrate it up to nine thousand millimoles and  

this allows it to preserve water and survive on  basically just drops of water every day so how  

much water do you need to drink well the exact  answer is you need to drink enough and this is  

going to vary greatly and we'll talk about how it  varies so if you're not drinking any water at all  

I would suggest that you start drinking some water  it's a really good thing to do and a lot of people  

always ask that I have this relative or my dad or  I know this person who never ever drinks any water  

they haven't had a drop of water for 50 years how  are they even alive and it's because the body can  

take water from anything that has water in it so  water is the best thing to drink because water  

has no particles the osmolarity of water is  zero so it's the best thing to start diluting  

the body fluids the body waste products and other  liquids count as well so if you drink coffee if  

you drink tea it's not quite as good as water  but it's almost all water and the closer you  

get to water the better so herb teas or a little  squeeze a lemon those are excellent again they're  

not exactly as good as water but they're pretty  close and what about other Foods well some food is  

relatively dry and other food is very very moist  so watermelon and cucumber and a lot of water-rich  

foods could be 95 or more water most non-starchy  vegetables and leafy greens are going to be more  

than 80 percent water and your body is really  really good at picking it apart getting rid of  

the fiber extracting some nutrients and whatever  water is left is still going to be part of the  

pool of water in the body so the more water-rich  foods you eat the less water you have to drink and  

I'm not a huge fan of trying to pick a number but  if we're going to try to come up with a baseline  

then I would say that somewhere between one and  three liters is probably going to be okay for  

most people so if you don't drink any water at all  then I would suggest you're probably going to be  

better off drinking two or three or four glasses  per day but more isn't necessarily better unless  

you need it so one to three liters that's about  33 to 100 ounces and here are the adjustments  

that you need to make to that amount so body size  is a huge influence if you are four foot eight or  

if you're six foot eight makes a big difference  if you're 80 pounds or if you're 300 pounds makes  

a big difference your activity level makes a huge  difference if you are mostly indoors and sedentary  

or if you are working out a lot or working outside  in a job a lot the temperature is going to have a  

huge influence because the warmer it gets the more  humid it gets the more you're going to be sweating  

and losing fluid and not only the temperature  but also the dry versus the moist air plays a  

huge role so in terms of breathing your lungs  are very very moist tissue so if you're in a  

dry climate and you're pulling in very dry air  into your moist lungs that dry air is going to  

grab more moisture so you're going to lose much  more fluid through breathing in a dry than a moist  

climate but when it comes to sweating it's the  other way around so the purpose of sweating is  

evaporation evaporation costs The Body Energy  so if it's very dry then the water evaporates  

very readily and we have a temperature loss but  if it's very very moist and you're sweating and  

and the sweat the moisture just sticks on the  skin then basically that evaporation is not  

working that sweating is not turning into a heat  loss and the extreme of that is if you're taking a  

hot bath because now you're immersed in the water  and after a while when you get hot you notice that  

your head starts sweating well your body is still  sweating but the evaporation isn't working so  

you're sweating more and more but there is no  cooling effect because there's no evaporation  

that's why it is often difficult to take a hot  bath for very long because you start feeling  

faint you get overheated and you don't have a way  of cooling off the body so it's very important  

to replenish fluids after a hot bath like that  so keep all that in mind but remember that the  

single best way to judge there's two ways one is  simply by the frequency of how often do you go to  

the bathroom if you are outside in the yard and  you just drank a gallon of water but you haven't  

gone to the bathroom in six hours you still didn't  drink enough and if you're going to the bathroom  

every 30 minutes you're probably drinking too  much so the frequency is one good indicator and  

the other one is the color of your urine just look  at it if it looks too dark or even brownish then  

you're severely dehydrated you're not drinking  enough you're forcing the kidney to concentrate  

it almost as much as it's capable of and if it's  too light if it looks like water now you're just  

pushing water you're drinking too much you're just  pushing it straight through the kidneys and with  

that you're putting extra stress on organs and  you risk losing a lot of electrolytes so neither  

extreme is good for you and just because someone  said you should drink a gallon of water doesn't  

make it a good idea too much is not better learn  to read your body pay attention and learn what's  

right for you if you enjoyed this video you're  going to love that one and if you truly want  

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